"Frank Herbert - The Dragon In The Sea" - читать интересную книгу автора (Herbert Brian & Frank)

Belland leaned forward. "Certainly, Doctor. I was just coming to that."
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The admiral's voice carried a tone somewhere between fear and deference.



Ramsey thought: Obe is running this meeting pretty much as he wants, and without these birds being
certain they're outmaneuvered. Now, he probably wants me to pick up a cue and help him apply the
clincher.



Dr. Oberhausen sank back into his chair with a stiff, stick-like gesture. A punctuation.



Belland's chair rasped on the floor. He got to his feet, went to the side wall at his left, indicated a
north-polar projection map. "Ensign Ramsey, we've lost twenty subtugs in these waters over the past
twenty weeks," he said. He turned to Ramsey altogether like a schoolteacher about to propound a
problem. "You're familiar with our pressing need for oil?"



Familiar? Ramsey restrained a wry smile. Through his mind sped the almost interminable list of
regulations on oil conservation: inspections, issuance forms, special classes, awards for innovations. He
nodded.



The admiral's bass rumble continued: "For almost two years now we've been getting extra oil from
reservoirs under the marginal seas of the Eastern Powers' continental shelf." His left hand made a vague
gesture over the map.



Ramsey's eyes widened. Then the rumors were true: the sub services were pirating enemy oil!



"We developed an underwater drilling technique working from converted subtugs," said Belland. "A
high-speed, low-friction pump and a new type of plastic barge complete the general picture."